This is a record I have been looking forward to for quite a while now. Ever since their first self titled album, I have been a huge fan of this band and when I heard a new LP would be being released I was very excited. In some ways I wondered if it were possible to top their first efforts, it was really that good. But they have certainly done it with Opium Morals, it has been on very high rotation since it arrived.
What I really appreciate about this album is the level of progression seen since their first album. While that was still amazing, I feel it was much more one-track minded than the work present on this LP. The band have experimented with quite a few different elements and have managed to pull them off brilliantly across all 10 tracks.
As if the music couldn't stand up by itself, the record comes housed in this wicked gatefold sleeve. Mike Kendrick has done a magnificent job with the artwork design, which really doesn't look as good in my photos as it does right in front of your eyes. Inside the sleeve are the lyrics to the first 9 tracks, with simply the words "lyrics withheld" for the last track, "Part 2".
This is available as a CD and vinyl, but I really had to opt for the vinyl. My memory is really not serving me well, but I think there were three versions of this pressed; a regular black and a limited red and blue. I'm gonna say the colour variants are limited to 200, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I decided to pick up a blue version simply because I thought it would look the best out of the two colour options. I haven't seen what the red looks like, but I am very happy with how this looks.
The whole record is also available to stream completely free thanks to A389s bandcamp page, so if you haven't got your hands on this yet listen up.
SSOS have been pretty recently as of late. Apart from this LP, they have since released a split with Ilsa for record store day (which will be coming up soon..). There is also talk of a new 7" coming out on Vedavu records, which you know will be fantastic.
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